The Tellem ('those who were here before us', the Dogon name for them) live on 1 January 1200 along the Bandiagara escarpment and its plateau, from the cliffs south of Bandiagara north-east toward Douentza.
They came about the eleventh century, after the Toloy of the last centuries BC, built their villages at the foot of the cliff and their granaries and burial caves high in its face, and lived by hoe farming, hunting with the bow, fishing, gathering and some herding. Their graves hold cotton tunics, blankets, baskets, beads, pots, headrests and wooden figures. Bedaux's dating at Pegue puts the winter of 1199-1200 at the turn of Tellem phase 2 (eleventh to twelfth centuries) and phase 3 (twelfth to fourteenth).
The Dogon, coming from the Mande country, arrive in the fourteenth or fifteenth century, after which the Tellem disappear or merge with them and with the Kurumba.
Who holds it
- Title
- Tellem lineage and village heads
- Since
- about the eleventh century
- Confidence
- medium
How things stand that morning
Self-governing. To the north-west, beyond the plateau's edge, lies the inland Niger delta (gha); to the east the Gourma and the Kurumba.
Customs and assemblies
Villages of related lineages; no king or chief over them all is known. Skeletal studies show one population that changed little over five centuries.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- 1200No dated event is recorded.
Where the sources disagree
- Wikipedia's Tellem page gives the Dogon arrival as the fourteenth century in one place and the eleventh in another; Bedaux's sequence supports the fourteenth or fifteenth.
Evidence: Dated archaeology (Bedaux and the Leiden excavations); oral tradition of the later Dogon.
On the map: The plateau's western edge toward the delta and the eastern edge in the Seno plain are approximate.
Sources and studies
- Tellem (Wikipedia)
- UNESCO General History of Africa IV (1984): Niane ch. 6, Cissoko ch. 8 (the Songhay), Izard ch. 9 (the Niger bend and the Volta basin), Lange ch. 10
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.